Telfair was formed from Wilkinson in 1807, and
named for Edward
Telfair. We have, in our account of Montgomery
county, drawn a picture
of Telfair.

In all this region known as the pine-barrens there
was so much general
resemblance, that the impression that there was no
difference in land
where pine trees grew was a common one with those
who did not know
better; but this was quite an error. The great
pine belt was in that
geological formation known as Quaternary, and a
small part in what was
known in Georgia as the rotten limestone country
and by the old
geologists as the Tertiary, where there are many
fossils. Much of the
pine land near the coast consisted of barren sand
dunes, and is now,
and probably always will be, worthless, and much
that might have
produced well is too flat for drainage; but in
Montgomery and Telfair
and the adjoining counties there is a large body
of pine land high and
dry, with a good foundation of yellow clay, where
the water is pure and
free from lime. This land is not naturally
fertile, and when manured
does not hold its fertility; but by liberal
fertilizing it can be made
to produce largely.

The Scotch immigrants of America (Scotchmen from
North Carolina) saw
the worth of these lands, and, as they cost but a
trifle, they secured
large bodies of them and built up good homes. Much
of this land,
however, was not taken up by home-seekers, but by
speculators who
secured the titles to it for a very small price.
It was thought to be
worthless; and many of those who drew lots would
not pay the
five-dollar fee demanded for a plot and grant. The
speculators took
this reverted land for the price of the warrant,
and secured the title.
They then put the lands on the market. There were
not a few lots which
were held under forged deeds, and innocent people
were inveigled into
the purchase of lands which were worthless, or for
which the seller had
no title.

A company of Maine lumbermen, who thought they saw
large possibilities
in lumbering in Georgia and in working up the pine
forests of the
South, bought from the real owners who had bought
them from the State,
for an insignificant sum, many thousand acres of
land in Telfair and
the adjoining counties. They paid for the land,
and received good
titles to it. They built large sawmills on the
Ocmulgee river, and
founded a city which was called Lumber City. The
venture was not
successful, and they abandoned the country. They
held to their deeds,
however, and paid the trifling taxes which were
demanded. The mills
rotted down. The lands were unoccupied, and were
taken possession of,
in many cases, by land thieves. They sold the lots
to bona-fide
purchasers and gave bogus titles. In some cases
the lots were sold for
taxes and bought in good faith; and, in blissful
ignorance that the
Maine company existed, these simple-hearted
purchasers took possession
of the lands and improved them. They never dreamed
that the Maine
company had any successor or representatives. For
decades of years
matters went on in this way, until after the war,
when the great lumber
firm of W.E. Dodge & Co. titles appeared on
the scene and presented
to the land, which were recognized as good, and
presented tax receipts
which showed that the tax sales had been illegal.
They demanded that
the owners should vacate their holdings. There was
much litigation, and
men were ejected from their homes by violence, and
in turn there was
murder and lawless proceedings against the agents
of strangers. The
courts came in; false titles were exposed, and
blood-stained criminals
were punished by lifelong imprisonment in distant
prisons. There was,
of course, a great deal of the county not involved
in these troubles,
and the railways opened it up; the turpentine and
lumber men came in,
and few sections of the State have developed so
rapidly as this section
of the once despised pine-barren of Telfair.

The lots of land were large — 490 acres in a lot,
and a lot of land was
often sold for twenty dollars. The result was the
securing of large
bodies of land by comparatively poor men, who
relied upon the wild
pastures for feeding their cattle, and upon a
small area of
well-fertilized land for their breadstuffs.

Montgomery, Telfair and Tattnall were all peopled
in the main by
thrifty Scotch people, and cattle- and
sheep-raising was the great
industry. And in no part of Georgia was there a
better type of people
than in these pine forests. These people had the
virtues and the vices
of the Scotch. They were clannish and somewhat
narrow, and many of them
were too fond of whisky; but they were plain and
honest, and shrewd and
religious. The school was found in every section;
but the county was
thinly peopled, and kirks of their fatherland were
few and often
remote, and so many of the Scotch Presbyterians
became Methodists and
Baptists. The Methodists had missionaries and
camp-meetings and
organized churches among them at an early day, and
built up quite a
church from the descendants of the Highlanders.

The population of Telfair in 1810 was only 526
whites and 288 slaves;
in 1820 it was 1,571 whites and 561 slaves. Twenty
years later it was
2,396 whites and 831 slaves. These slaves were
almost entirely confined
to a few planta tions on the river, where there
was sometimes a large
num ber, amounting to scores, on a plantation. The
first settlers were:
Jos. Williams, A. Graham, D. Graham, John Wilcox,
Thos. Wilcox, G.
Mizell, A. McLeod, Robert Boyd, Moses Rountree,
James Mooney, Wright
Ryall, McDuffie, J. A. Rogers, N. Ashley, C.
Ashley, John Coffee, W.
Ashley, A. Brewer, J. Herbert, S. Herbert, J.
MacCrea, Duncan MacCrea,
O. Butler, Lachlin Leslie.

Of these the Ashleys, Coffees, Brewers and Rogers
were English, and had
large plantations on the river. The others were
pure Scotch.

The Southern railway passes through Telfair and
the steamboats ply the
river.

The people of Telfair always valued education, and
the country school
was in every neighborhood from the first
settlement. They were,
however, a poor, plain people and were content
with the elements of an
English education; but as the railroad came the
desire for better
culture was developed, and high schools were
established, and in McRae
there is a collegiate institute known as the South
Georgia College,
which is quite a flourishing school and is doing
much for higher
education.

Towns,
Hamlets, and Villages

Telfair County
was laid out in 1807 and
named in honor of Ed­ ward Telfair, twice governor
of Georgia.
Parts of
it were added to Montgomery in 1812 and 1820, a part
was taken from
Appling and added to Telfair in 1818, in 18.34 a
part of Telfair was
given to Coffee county, and in August, 1905, still
another portion was
taken to help form Jeff Davis county. Previous to
the formation of the
last named county, the boundaries were as follows:
Montgomery on the
northeast, Coffee on the southeast, Coffee and Irwin
on the south,
Wilcox on the southwest and Dodge on the northwest.
The Ocmulgee and
Little Ocmulgee rivers, with their tributaries,
drain the county. The
face of the country is level and the soil is sandy,
with clay subsoil.
Com, oats, sweet and Irish potatoes, cotton, rice,
millet, sugarcane
and peas are the staple productions. The principal
fruits are peaches,
apples, plums and pears. Thousands of acres of
timber still stand
and
there is a large trade in turpentine, lumber, rosin
and shingles. The
Southern and the Seaboard Air Line railways cross
the county and
provide ample facilities for transportation. McRae
is the county seat.
Helena and Lumber City are other towns. The
population of the county in
1900 was 10,083, an increase of 4,406 since 1890.
Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and
Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form Transcribed by
Kristen Bisanz

Helena, a town
in the northwestern
part of Telfair county, is about three miles from
McRae and at the
junction of the main line of the Southern railway
and the Americus
& Savannah division of the Seaboard Air Line.
The town was
incorporated by act of the legislature in 1891, and
being situated in
the midst of the great pine and turpentine belt, it
is quite a busy
place with its saw mills and its shipments of
lumber, shingles,
turpentine and rosin. It has express and telegraph
offices, a money
order post office, good business houses, good
schools and the
additional advantage of proximity to the South
Georgia college at
McRae. The Helena district has 975 inhabitants, of
whom 604 live in the
town.(Georgia:
Comprising
Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions,
and
Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form. VOL III Publ.
1906. Transcribed
by Angelia Carpenter)

Lumber
City,
a
town in the eastern part of Telfair county, is on the
Ocmulgee river
and the branch of the Southern railway that connects
Macon to
Brunswick. It was incorporated by act of the
legislature in 1889
and, as its name indicates, has a large lumber
business. It ships
large quantities of lumber, turpentine and rosin over
the railway and
by steamboats plying the Ocmulgee and the Altamaha
rivers, has
telegraph and express offices, a money order
postoffice with rural free
delivery, a branch bank of the Baxley Banking Company,
several
flourishing mercantile establishments, and both the
town and vicinity
are well supplied with schools and churches. By
the census of
1900 the population was 760, and in the entire
district there were1,326
inhabitants.
(Source: Georgia Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and
Persons, VOL II, by Candler & Evans, Publ. 1906.
Transcribed by
Joanne Morgan)

Milan, a village in
Telfair county, is on the Seaboard Air Line
railway, about eight miles
west of Helena. It has a money order postoffice,
express and telegraph
offices, some mercantile interests, schools,
churches, etc., and in
1900 reported a population of 112.[Source:
Georgia
Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and Persons, Vol 2, Publ 1906.
Transcribed by Tracy
McAllister]

Oswald, a post-village of Telfair
county, is on the Seaboard Air Line railway, five
miles west of Helena.
It has some mercantile concerns and docs some
shipping.
Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and
Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form- Transcribed
by Kristen Bisanz

Rue, a
post-hamlet in the
southern part of Telfair county, is near the
Ocmulgee river and about
eight miles northwest of Barrows Bluff, which is
the nearest railroad
station.
Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and
Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form Transcribed
by Kristen Bisanz

Scotland, a town in Telfair
county, is on the Macon & Brunswick division
of the Southern railway, about five miles south­
east of McRae. It bas some mercantile,
manufacturing and shipping interests, a money
order postoffice, telegraph and express offices,
school and church privileges, and in 1900 had a
population of 150.
Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic
Form- Transcribed by Kristen Bisanz

Towns,
a village of
Telfair county, is a
station on the Macon & Brunswick division of the
Southern railway
system, ten miles southeast of McRae. It has a money
order postoffice,
with rural free delivery, telegraph and express
offices, mercantile and
shipping interests, and in 1900 reported a
population of 141.
Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and
Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form Transcribed by
Kristen Bisanz

Banks

Merchants’
Bank, The, of McRae, Telfair county, was
organized in 1897, with
a capital stock of $25,000 and with the following
corps of officers:
Thomas Eason, president; J.F. Cook, vice-president;
L.L. Campbell,
cashier. The bank was incorporated under the laws of
the state in 1900,
and its present officers are: H.E. Pritchett,
president; E.F. McRae,
vice-president; H.P. Whiddon, cashier; A.V. Whiddon,
assistant cashier;
Judge Max L. McRae, attorney. The president is a
resident of
Jacksonville, Fla., and the other officers reside in
McRae. The bank is
established in a substantial and attractive building
of its own, at the
corner of Oak street and Second avenue, and controls
a large and
representative business. From the official statement
of the bank issued
Jan. 9, 1906, the following items are secured: Time
loans against
collateral, $73,205.56; banking house and fixtures,
$3,574.14; due from
other banks and bankers, $39,128.61 cash on hand,
$2,130.77 real
estate, $4,100. Total, $122,142.08. Capital stock,
$15,000; surplus
fund, $10,455.89; dividends unpaid, $1,360
individual deposits subject
to check, $68,525.11 time certificates of deposit,
$26,676.10;
cashier’s checks outstanding, $124.98. Total,
$122,142.08.
(Source: Georgia Sketches of Counties, Towns,
Events, Institutions, and
Persons, VOL II, by Candler & Evans, Publ. 1906.
Transcribed by Kim
Mohler)

Rue, a post-hamlet in the
southern part of
Telfair county, is near the Ocmulgee river and about
eight miles
northwest of Barrows Bluff, which is the nearest
railroad station.
Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and
Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form Transcribed by
Kristen Bisanz